“So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.” Romans 8:6 NLT. Now here is another fantastic clarification of that verse.

“Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life.Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what He is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored.” Romans 8:5-8 MSG

We’ve not been left to muddle along on our own. Our wonderful Heavenly Father has given us the Holy Spirit to help us through this maze we call life! Therefore it is an enormous tragedy to ignore;  or be afraid of;  or misunderstand the Holy Spirit’s purpose in our lives! He is here for us in the same way He was there for Jesus. He is not merely about speaking in tongues. NOW — HE’S GOD WITH US! Inside. Make Him welcome.

We need to give up our ideas that this goes like this and that goes like that because our parents or spiritual mentors, or our forefathers always did things this way. When we do that we are making unconscious choices – and we leave His incredible variety behind. Ephesians 3:10 “His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms,..” Lemme put that another way, if you go on doing what they all did just because they did it – then you are not walking with the ONE WHO MAKES ALL THINGS NEW! HE’S STILL TALKING – giving fresh revelation of His purposes from the book. 

Tradition sets us in cement – we need to keep hitting the ‘refresh’ button. That kind of listening takes time and, sadly, we all have somewhere else we gotta be. But when we live that way we are treating Almighty God, the One we are living for, like a sandwich. We squish Him in between breakfast or lunch because we don’t have all day! Totally forgetting that: ‘He numbers our days’ and “our times are in HIS hands.” Without focus, tasks will overtake us.

SELF is the sneakiest cleverest thing. It has a million reasons for thinking what IT thinks is right, and if you ask it – self will trot out hundreds of those reasons … and they all sound reason-able! It is all about what we focus on. With some people it is patently obvious what they are thinking about. Me, myself and I!  But for others selfishness is not as easy to discern.

PEOPLE are NOT accessories to our life! As human beings we have a tendency to divide our lives up into bits. This bit is ministry, that bit is family time, leisure, sleep, stuff like that. But God wants IN on all our lives, so when we love our spouse, parents, kids … as He leads us, we are still engaged in ministry and living for Jesus at the same time. Read the book! Jesus didn’t have an off button – even when He woke up suddenly from sleeping!

Self never wants to wait for its turn – when self is in charge it is always its turn! This is why we need God as the centre of our focus at all times. HE is now our reference point. Being loving, and doing what my spouse wants to do when I kinda hate doing that – IS dying to self! Realistically speaking, that’s when the Holy Spirit becomes our resting place, our motivator, the Person we defer to. It is not just about reading the bible because we have to … its about digesting the bible so well we end up being the bible to everyone around us. 

There is no way on God’s green earth anyone can do that, live that way — without supernatural help! The wonderful thing about living selflessly, as He leads you, is this: the  stuff you need, that you have laid aside for His sake, is often added unto us as we walk along. My very last suggestion is this, when you are in doubt about your own motivation – and I often am! … Ask yourself this – cui bono? That’s latin for “who benefits?” Boy does that sort out my motivation quickly. The Holy Spirit’s input is crucial – don’t tune Him out. 👋🏻